Celebrate your emotions & feelings of finally finding and understanding young Jeff. Taking him from those years of emotional & mental, guilt, pain, shame. Locked in the depths of his soul. To let him speak of his innocence and sadness for things done to him & things that he had to do to other young innocent victims.

Young Jeff, always was an innocent victim, just as much as those other young kids were. All unable to understand nor comprehend what was happening to them.

As you come to listen & love that young boy, easing his hurts & fears, bringing him further out from inside of himself into the truth and light, you will also grow as that man. Without the yolk of guilt, pain & shame weighting you down.

Celebrate that boy, As HE is YOU.

Wishing you continuing success in healing.

"I will take that lost boys hand, and I will lead him from the depths of darkness, into the sunshine, forever into eternity." As he is me.

Little Jeff was not an ordinary, well adjusted 15 year old. He was an abused, tortured child who did what he had to do to survive.

This is what I realised about the younger version of me that I have been struggling with. He did a lot of terrible things, often while understanding that they were wrong. But he wasn't mentally able to make those decisions. The real crime was, firstly, to deny him the environment he needed to grow into a normal, well adjusted teenager, and secondly, to put him in the situation where he needed to make those decisions. Little Jeff should never have had to choose between abusing others or being tortured. That's a lose-lose situation that no child, let alone still a child who is already mentally damaged, should ever be placed in.

No, little Jeff was not responsible because he was no more able to take that responsibly than a little kid is able to consent top sex...

Shawn Hornbeck - kidnapping victim and sex slave from 11-14 - after 4 years of rape and torture and child porn and at least one serious murder attempt on him - helped his perp kidnap the next victim Ben Ownby and then stood guard over the younger boy so he couldn't escape before the perp broke him.

Upon rescuing the boys, the DA took about 4 minutes to declare that no, obviously Hornbeck would not be charged with anything.

Was that a mistake, Jeff? Should he have been found responsible for kidnapping, conspiracy, accessory to rape? Bill O'Reilly gave Hornbeck a hard time fir not just walking away, since he was allowed to walk around town and even ride a bike - you do the same for "Little Jeff." But what is "away" when you can be attacked at any time by someone who has proven they can destroy you? When you can be attacked anywhere and are safe nowhere? When you can't even control your own body and someone 40 years and many warm beds away says you should have been in control as much as Houdini escaping a straitjacket underwater?

Another case study - Todd Bequette, kidnapped / sex slaved / tortured from 13-14, also eventually given some amount of walk-around privileges, also forced to help trick and kidnap subsequent victims.

When someone is tortured and assaulted with deadly weapons and has mo sense of safety or escape, they will do what they must to live.

One of my favorite cousins is 14. He's hilarious and bright and kind and outgoing, really a kid anyone would be proud to have as a son. He's also a CHILD, he looks and acts like one, and my blood curdles at thinking of him as a proxy to "Little Jeff." Honestly the CSA would seem less hideous in his case than the physical brutality, attempted murder, and use of professional torture devices invented in the secret police dungeons of fascist dictatorships that have no function but to break and enslave people. I survived CSA, people survive it as awful as it is, but upon any thought of extreme violence befalling that cousin of mine, I'm sorry, I can't envision him surviving. I seriously would not be able to conceive of him NOT just dying right away. Anything, and I mean ANYTHING, that would get him to live would be in-bounds. I read your story and I still repeat: ANYTHING.

Like everyone else here, I'm in the middle of my own sordid history and won't pretend to have enough perspective to declare you an innocent, although - quite frankly - based on what you have said - I cannot imagine you have any basis to feel culpable for anything.

What I can do is compare our journeys - they reveal the only truths I feel qualified to tell.

Our situations were similar in that we had co-victims. But I look at how much more you had to deal with and how much better you handled it. Unlike you, no one used physical force or threats of bodily harm with me. I wasn't made to have sex with my co-victims - nor did I. Your perps (and when I say perps - I'm talking about the movie guys, not sfather) threatened your life and used electric torture devices. All my perp did was whine that he wasn't getting any. Your perps used you for all you were worth, promising some financial renumeration which never materialized. My perp promised MY asking price - to leave my little sister alone if I acquiesced - and I didn't get "paid" either. So why is that important? Well - because we both knew our abusers were complete creeps. How did we handle it? When your perps skipped town, that was it. You didn't go after your little co-victims. Compare, my friend - when my sister was finally out of the danger zone, I kept going back to please her abuser. I mean really - how sick is that?

These are the dirty little secrets we never get over. I have no allusions about ever reconciling my lost integrity. Maybe some of us were just little shits and as much as we try not to be shits as grown-ups, we are who we are. I should have known better - I wasn't a stupid kid. I suspect you are wrestling with similar dynamics, maybe afraid to see little Jeff because then you'd have to ask him the hard questions. Or maybe by acknowledging that "little shit" as truly you, then you dilute your integrity, as if it were easier to just pretend he was someone else. I think of that when I hear these lyrics (Hurt):

I don't know - maybe I'll get pilloried for posting this, but if everything has to be diluted down to pleasant platitudes and Pollyanna, then I don't belong here anyways. Maybe - just maybe - we're not supposed to feel good about this. Maybe there aren't any answers that will make us feel better. Maybe that's just the way it's supposed to be with us. And maybe that's what it means to be a responsible adult - to bear those responsibilities and carry on like good soldiers.

We all drag our crosses through life. But it is plain to see that you have carried yours a lot better than I ever would have in similar straits. And years later you are surrounded by family and grandchildren - a true legacy because each child is a new promise you brought into the world. In that sense, you have probably "carried on" finer than most of us. You are a better man than I, Jeff.

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